The Trail of Tears opens the door for slavery

The creation and growth of democracy in the United States was made possible by the genocide inflicted upon the Native Americans by our ancestors. Possibly the darkest chapter in the near extermination of the Native Americans ocurrred in 1838 at the hands of Andrew Jackson.

When gold was discovered in Georgia, pressure mounted to force the removal of the Cherokee tribe from their lands in Georgia. The Cherokee sued in the United States Supreme Court for the right to remain on their lands. In "Cherokee Nation v. Georgia" and "Worcester v. Georgia, the Supreme Court upheld the Cherokee land claims.

Unfortunately, President Andrew Jackson ignored the Supreme Court and sent federal troops to forcibly remove the Cherokee. During harsh winter conditions in 1838, the Cherokee were removed from Georgia and forced to march to Oklahoma. Because of the incredible hardship and death that resulted, the Cherokee refer to this time as the "Trail of Tears".

Here's how it happened:

Early in the 19th century, while the rapidly-growing United States expanded into the lower South, white settlers faced what they considered an obstacle. This area was home to the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chicasaw and Seminole nations. These Indian nations, in the view of the settlers and many other white Americans, were standing in the way of progress. Eager for land to raise cotton, the settlers pressured the federal government to acquire Indian territory.

Andrew Jackson, from Tennessee, was a forceful proponent of Indian removal. In 1814 he commanded the U.S. military forces that defeated a faction of the Creek nation. In their defeat, the Creeks lost 22 million acres of land in southern Georgia and central Alabama. The U.S. acquired more land in 1818 when, spurred in part by the motivation to punish the Seminoles for their practice of harboring fugitive slaves, Jackson's troops invaded Spanish Florida.

From 1814 to 1824, Jackson was instrumental in negotiating nine out of eleven treaties which divested the southern tribes of their eastern lands in exchange for lands in the west. The tribes agreed to the treaties for strategic reasons. They wanted to appease the government in the hopes of retaining some of their land, and they wanted to protect themselves from white harassment. As a result of the treaties, the United States gained control over three-quarters of Alabama and Florida, as well as parts of Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky and North Carolina. This was a period of voluntary Indian migration, however, and only a small number of Creeks, Cherokee and Choctaws actually moved to the new lands.

In 1823 the Supreme Court handed down a decision which stated that Indians could occupy lands within the United States, but could not hold title to those lands. This was because their "right of occupancy" was subordinate to the United States' "right of discovery." In response to the great threat this posed, the Creeks, Cherokee, and Chicasaw instituted policies of restricting land sales to the government. They wanted to protect what remained of their land before it was too late.

Although the five Indian nations had made earlier attempts at resistance, many of their strategies were non-violent. One method was to adopt Anglo-American practices such as large-scale farming, Western education, and slave-holding. This earned the nations the designation of the "Five Civilized Tribes." They adopted this policy of assimilation in an attempt to coexist with settlers and ward off hostility. But it only made whites jealous and resentful.

Other attempts involved ceding portions of their land to the United States with a view to retaining control over at least part of their territory, or of the new territory they received in exchange. Some Indian nations simply refused to leave their land - the Creeks and the Seminoles even waged war to protect their territory. The First Seminole War lasted from 1817 to 1818. The Seminoles were aided by fugitive slaves who had found protection among them and had been living with them for years. The presence of the fugitives enraged white planters and fueled their desire to defeat the Seminoles.

The Cherokee used legal means in their attempt to safeguard their rights. They sought protection from land-hungry white settlers, who continually harassed them by stealing their livestock, burning their towns, and sqatting on their land. In 1827 the Cherokee adopted a written constitution declaring themselves to be a sovereign nation. They based this on United States policy. In former treaties, Indian nations had been declared sovereign so they would be legally capable of ceding their lands. Now the Cherokee hoped to use this status to their advantage. The state of Georgia, however, did not recognize their sovereign status, but saw them as tenants living on state land. The Cherokee took their case to the Supreme Court, which ruled against them.

The Cherokee went to the Supreme Court again in 1831. This time they based their appeal on an 1830 Georgia law which prohibited whites from living on Indian territory after March 31, 1831, without a license from the state. The state legislature had written this law to justify removing white missionaries who were helping the Indians resist removal. The court this time decided in favor of the Cherokee. It stated that the Cherokee had the right to self-government, and declared Georgia's extension of state law over them to be unconstitutional. The state of Georgia refused to abide by the Court decision, however, and President Jackson refused to enforce the law.

In 1830, just a year after taking office, Jackson pushed a new piece of legislation called the "Indian Removal Act" through both houses of Congress. It gave the president power to negotiate removal treaties with Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi. Under these treaties, the Indians were to give up their lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for lands to the west. Those wishing to remain in the east would become citizens of their home state. This act affected not only the southeastern nations, but many others further north. The removal was supposed to be voluntary and peaceful, and it was that way for the tribes that agreed to the conditions. But the southeastern nations resisted, and Jackson forced them to leave.

Jackson's attitude toward Native Americans was paternalistic and patronizing - he described them as children in need of guidance, and believed the removal policy was beneficial to the Indians. Most white Americans thought that the United States would never extend beyond the Mississippi. Removal would save Indian people from the depredations of whites, and would resettle them in an area where they could govern themselves in peace. But some Americans saw this as an excuse for a brutal and inhumane course of action, and protested loudly against removal.

Their protests did not save the southeastern nations from removal, however. The Choctaws were the first to sign a removal treaty, which they did in September of 1830. Some chose to stay in Mississippi under the terms of the Removal Act.Though the War Department made some attempts to protect those who stayed, it was no match for the land-hungry whites who squatted on Choctaw territory or cheated them out of their holdings. Soon most of the remaining Choctaws, weary of mistreatment, sold their land and moved west.

For the next 28 years, the United States government struggled to force relocation of the southeastern nations. A small group of Seminoles was coerced into signing a removal treaty in 1833, but the majority of the tribe declared the treaty illegitimate and refused to leave. The resulting struggle was the Second Seminole War, which lasted from 1835 to 1842. As in the first war, fugitive slaves fought beside the Seminoles who had taken them in. Thousands of lives were lost in the war, which cost the Jackson administration approximately 40 to 60 million dollars - ten times the amount it had allotted for Indian removal. In the end, most of the Seminoles moved to the new territory. The few who remained had to defend themselves in the Third Seminole War (1855-58), when the U.S. military attempted to drive them out. Finally, the United States paid the remaining Seminoles to move west.

The Creeks also refused to emigrate. They signed a treaty in March, 1832, which opened a large portion of their Alabama land to white settlement, but guaranteed them protected ownership of the remaining portion, which was divided among the leading families. The government did not protect them from speculators, however, who quickly cheated them out of their lands. By 1835 the destitute Creeks began stealing livestock and crops from white settlers. Some eventually committed arson and murder in retaliation for their brutal treatment. In 1836 the Secretary of War ordered the removal of the Creeks as a military necessity. By 1837, approximately 15,000 Creeks had migrated west. They had never signed a removal treaty.

The Chickasaws had seen removal as inevitable, and had not resisted. They signed a treaty in 1832 which stated that the federal government would provide them with suitable western land and would protect them until they moved. But once again, the onslaught of white settlers proved too much for the War Department, and it backed down on its promise. The Chickasaws were forced to pay the Choctaws for the right to live on part of their western allotment. They migrated there in the winter of 1837-38.

The Cherokee, on the other hand, were tricked with an illegitimate treaty. In 1833, a small faction agreed to sign a removal agreement: the Treaty of New Echota. The leaders of this group were not the recognized leaders of the Cherokee nation, and over 15,000 Cherokees -- led by Chief John Ross -- signed a petition in protest. The Supreme Court ignored their demands and ratified the treaty in 1836. The Cherokee were given two years to migrate voluntarily, at the end of which time they would be forcibly removed. By 1838 only 2,000 had migrated; 16,000 remained on their land. The U.S. government sent in 7,000 troops, who forced the Cherokees into stockades at bayonet point. They were not allowed time to gather their belongings, and as they left, whites looted their homes. Then began the march known as the Trail of Tears, in which 4,000 Cherokee people died of cold, hunger, and disease on their way to the western lands.

By 1837, the Jackson administration had removed 46,000 Native American people from their land east of the Mississippi, and had secured treaties which led to the removal of a slightly larger number. Most members of the five southeastern nations had been relocated west, opening 25 million acres of land to white settlement and to slavery.

The early early days:

    THE YEMASSEE

    A scatter'd race - a wild, unfetter'd tribe,
    That in the forests dwelt - that send no ships
    For commerce on the waters - rear no walls
    To shelter from the storm, or shield from strife
    And leave behind, in memory of their name,
    No monument, save in the dim, deep woods,
    That daily perish as their lords have done
    Beneath the keen stroke of the pioneer.
    Let us look back upon their forest homes,
    As, in that earlier time, when first their foes,
    The pale-faced, from the distant nations came,
    They dotted the green banks of winding streams

There is a small section of country now comprised within the limits of Beaufort District, in the State of South Carolina, which goes by the name of Indian Land. The authorities are numerous which show this district to have been the very first in North America distinguished by an European settlement. The design is attributed to the celebrated Coligni, Admiral of France, in the reign of Charles IX, who conceived the project with the ulterior view of securing a sanctuary for the Huguenots when they should be compelled by the anti-religious persecutions of the time to fly from their native into foreign regions. This settlement proved unsuccessful and the events which history records of the subsequent efforts of the French to establish colonies in the same neighbourhood, while of unquestionable authority, have all the air and appearance of the most delightful romance.

It was not till a hundred years after, that the same spot was temporarily settled by the English under Sayle, who became the first governor, as he was the first permanent founder of the settlement. The situation was exposed, however, to the incursions of the Spaniards, who, in the meanwhile, had possessed themselves of Florida, and who, for a long time after, continued to harass and prevent colonization in this quarter. But perseverance at length triumphed over all these difficulties, and though Sayle, for farther security in the infancy of his settlement, had removed to the banks of the Ashley, other adventurers, by little and little, contrived to occupy the ground he had left, and in the year 1700, the birth of a white native child is recorded.

From the earliest period of our acquaintance with the country of which we speak, it was in the possession of a powerful and gallant race, and their tributary tribes, known by the general name of the Yemassees. Not so numerous, perhaps, as many of the neighbouring nations, they nevertheless commanded the respectful consideration of all. In valour they made up for any deficiencies of number, and proved themselves not only sufficiently strong to hold out defiance to invasion, but actually in most cases to move first in the assault. Their readiness for the field was one of their chief securities against attack, and their forward valour, elastic temper, and excellent skill in the rude condition of their warfare, enabled them to subject to their dominion most of the tribes around them, many of which were equally numerous with their own.

Like the Romans, in this way they strengthened their own powers by a wise incorporation of the conquered with the conquerors, and under the several names of Huspahs, Coosaws, Combahees, Stonoees, and Sewees, the greater strength of the Yemassees contrived to command so many dependants, prompted by their movements and almost entirely under their dictation.

Thus strengthened, the recognition of their power extended into the remote interior, and they formed one of the twenty-eight aboriginal nations among which, at its first settlement by the English, the province of Carolina was divided.

A feeble colony of adventurers from a distant world had taken up its abode alongside of them. The weaknesses of the intruder were, at first, his only but sufficient protection with the unsophisticated savage.

The white man had his lands assigned him, and he trenched his furrows to receive the grain on the banks of Indian waters. The wild man looked on the humiliating labour, wondering as he did so, but without fear, and never dreaming for a moment of his own approaching subjection.

Meanwhile the adventurers grew daily more numerous, for their friends and relatives soon followed them over the ocean. They too had lands assigned them, in turn, by the improvident savage, and increasing intimacies, with uninterrupted security, day by day, won the former still more deeply into the bosom of the forests, and more immediately in connexion with their wild possessors, until we behold the log-house of the white man, rising up amid the thinned clump of woodland foliage, within hailing distance of the squat, clay hovel of the savage. Sometimes their smokes even united; and now and then the two, the "European and his dusky guide," might be seen, pursuing, side by side and with the same dog, upon the cold track of the affrighted deer or the yet more timorous turkey.

Let us go back a hundred years, and more vividly recall this picture.

In 1715, the Yemassees were in all their glory. They were politic and brave - their sway was unquestioned, and even with the Europeans, then grown equal to their own defence along the coast, they were ranked as allies rather than auxiliaries.

As such they had taken up arms with the Carolinians against the Spaniards, who, from St. Augustine perpetually harassed the settlements. Until this period they had never been troubled by that worst tyranny of all, the consciousness of their inferiority to a power of which they were now beginning to grow jealous.

Lord Craven, the governor and palatine of Carolina, had done much in a little time, by the success of his arms over the neighbouring tribes, and the admirable policy which distinguished his government, to impress this feeling of suspicion upon the minds of the Yemassees.

Their aid had ceased to be necessary to the Carolinians. They were no longer sought or solicited. The presents became fewer, the borderers grew bolder and more incursive, and new territory daily acquired by the colonists in some way or other drove them back for hunting-grounds upon the waters of the Edistoh and Isundiga (Savannah River).

Their chiefs began to show signs of discontent, if not of disaffection, and the great mass of their people assumed a sullenness of habit and demeanour, which had never marked their conduct heretofore. They looked, with a feeling of aversion which as yet they vainly laboured to conceal, upon the approach of the white man on every side.

The thick groves disappeared, the clear skies grew turbid with the dense smokes rolling up in solid masses from the burning herbage. Hamlets grew into existence, as it were by magic, under their very eyes and in sight of their own towns, for the shelter of a different people, and at length a common sentiment, not yet imbodied perhaps by its open expression, prompted the Yemassees in a desire to arrest the progress of a race with which they could never hope to acquire any real or lasting affinity.

Another and a stronger ground for jealous dislike, arose necessarily in their minds with the gradual approach of that consciousness of their inferiority which, while the colony was dependant and weak, they had not so readily perceived. But when they saw with what facility the new comers could convert even the elements not less than themselves into slaves and agents, under the guidance of the strong will and the overseeing judgment, the gloom of their habit swelled into ferocity, and their minds were busied with those subtle schemes and stratagems with which, in his nakedness, the savage usually seeks to neutralize the superiority of European armour.

The Carolinians were now in possession of the entire sea-coast, with a trifling exception, which forms the Atlantic boundary of Beaufort and Charleston districts. They had but few, and those small and scattered, interior settlements. A few miles from the seashore, and the Indian lands generally girdled them in, still in the possession as in the right of the aborigines.

But few treaties had yet been effected for the purchase of territory fairly out of sight of the sea; those tracts only excepted which formed the borders of such rivers, as, emptying into the ocean and navigable to small vessels, afforded a ready chance of escape to the coast in the event of any sudden necessity.

In this way, the whites had settled along the banks of the Combahee, the Coosaw, the Pocotaligo, and other contiguous rivers; dwelling generally in small communities of five, seven, or ten families; seldom of more, and these taking care that the distance should be slight between them. Sometimes, indeed, an individual adventurer more fearless than the rest, drove his stakes, and took up his lone abode, or with a single family, in some boundless contiguity of shade, several miles from his own people, and over against his roving neighbour; pursuing in many cases the same errant life, adopting many of his savage habits, and this too, without risking much, if any thing, in the general opinion.

For a long season, so pacific had been the temper of the Yemassees towards the Carolinians, that the latter had finally become regardless of that necessary caution which bolts a door and keeps a watch-dog.

On the waters of the Pocotaligo, or Little Wood river, this was more particularly the habit of the settlement. This is a small stream, about twenty-five miles long, which empties itself into, and forms one of the tributaries of, that singular estuary called Broad river; and thus, in common with a dozen other streams of similar size, contributes to the formation of the beautiful harbour of Beaufort, which, with a happy propriety the French denominated Port Royal.

Leaving the yet small but improving village of the Carolinians at Beaufort, we ascend the Pocotaligo, and still, at intervals, their dwellings present themselves to our eye occasionally on one side or the other. The banks, generally edged with swamp and fringed with its low peculiar growth, possess few attractions, and the occasional cottage serves greatly to relieve a picture, wanting certainly, not less in moral association than in the charm of landscape.

At one spot we encounter the rude, clumsy edifice, usually styled the Block House, built for temporary defence, and here and there holding its garrison of five, seven, or ten men, seldom of more, maintained simply as posts, not so much with the view to war as of warning. In its neighbourhood we see a cluster of log dwellings, three or four in number, the clearings in progress, the piled timber smoking or in flame, and the stillness only broken by the dull, heavy echo of the axe, biting into the trunk of the tough and long-resisting pine.

On the banks the woodman draws up his "dug-out" or canoe - a single cypress, hollowed out by fire and the hatchet. Around the fields the negro piles slowly the worming and ungraceful fence, while the white boy gathers fuel for the pot over which his mother is bending in the preparation of their frugal meal.

A turn in the river unfolds to our sight a cottage, standing by itself, half finished, and probably deserted by its capricious owner. Opposite, on the other bank of the river, an Indian dries his bearskin in the sun, while his infant hangs in the tree, wrapped in another, and lashed down upon a board (for security, not for symmetry), while his mother gathers up the earth, with a wooden drag, about the young roots of the tender corn. As we proceed, the traces of the Indians thicken. Now a cot, and now a hamlet, grows up before the sight, until, at the very head of the river, we come to the great place of council and most ancient town of the Yemassees - the town of Pocotaligo.

From Chapter 1, The Yemassee: A Romance of Carolina by William Gilmore Simms, 1806-1870

Cherokee Nation v. State of Georgia , John Marshall 1831

Mr. Chief Justice Marshall delivered the opinion of the Court:

This bill is brought by the Cherokee Nation, praying an injunction to restrain the state of Georgia from the execution of certain laws of that state, which as is alleged, go directly to annihilate the Cherokees as a political society, and to seize, for the use of Georgia, the lands of the nation which have been assured to them by the United States in solemn treaties repeatedly made and still in force.

If courts were permitted to indulge their sympathies, a case better calculated to excite them can scarcely be imagined. A people once numerous, powerful, and truly independent, found by our ancestors in the quiet and uncontrolled possession of an ample domain, gradually sinking beneath our superior policy, our arts, and our arms, have yielded their lands by successive treaties, each of which contains a solemn guarantee of the residue, until they retain no more of their formerly extensive territory than is deemed necessary to their comfortable subsistence. To preserve this remnant the present application is made.

Theodore Pease Russell and "The Trail of Tears"

Theodore Pease Russell came to the easternmost Ozarks in 1838 when he was 18, settling with his parents and seven other children in the Arcadia Valley of the St. Francois range after a lengthy voyage from Connecticut.  Theodore fed the family as appointed hunter, became a farmer, fought in the Civil War, was a justice of the peace, and in 1885 began to set his memories down in a weekly column for the Iron County Register.

Before he died in 1899, he had written of hunting, fishing, social affairs, regional history, geography and many other things Arcadian.  He was 19 years old when the Cherokee Trail of Tears touched his life as Indians were driven from their towns in the Southeast United States to Indian Territory; a half century later he remembered it wistfully for his readers in one of the Register columns:

"The government removed the Cherokee Indians from Georgia to the Indian Reservation in Oklahoma in 1839.  I remember February of that year, a division of the Ross party came through this valley and camped on Knob Creek, a camp extending from the Half-Way House along the west bank of the creek at the foot of Shepherd Mountain for nearly a mile.  It was a muddy time.

There were about 2,000 Indians in this division.  All of the others had gone by way of Farmington, but the roads were so bad that this last division had come this way along the Fredericktown road and such a road at that time!  A few days before the Indians came a man arrived to find suitable camping spots and supplies such as corn, oats, and fodder for their teams.  There were so few people in the Arcadia Valley then there was only one man who had much to spare.  But Abram Buford had a large crib of old corn, oats and fodder which were to be delivered at the place now owned by Judge Emerson.  Mr. Buford hired father to send me with a team to haul oats and fodder, while his team hauled corn.

As the Indians came in they were furnished rations by lodges, each lodge to receive so much corn, oats and fodder, after which they camped at the place assigned them.  They received no other rations; the hunters supplied meat out of the woods.  Each morning when the Indians broke camp they were told how far they had to go and in what direction.   The hunters spread out like a fan and started through the woods toward the next camping place, about ten miles ahead, and swept everything before them in the way of game.   During the day deer could be seen running as if Old Scratch was after them across fields and roads.

About four o'clock I had finished hauling, so the Commissary Agent asked me if I did not want to go see the Indians in camp; he told me to let one of the boys take my team home, and he would show me how Indians lived.  When we reached camp we found the first lodge close by what was to be Half-Way House.  As each lodge came in to camp it went on beyond earlier arrivals until the last arrival was furthest in advance and so the first to move on in the morning.

As we came to each lodge, the commissary officer would explain everything.  I saw families cooking supper, and noticed at each lodge a large tree had been felled by the body of which they had built their fire.  On the butts of the logs I saw square holes that would hold about four quarts.

"Do you know what that is for?"  the officer asked.  "That is their grist mill; they shell corn into the hole, take that big pounder you see there, and pound the corn until it is fine enough, then they sift it and make bread."

We went along until we came to a squaw pounding corn.  She soon dipped out the grain into a sieve, sifted out the finest of the meal, then put the rest back to be pounded again.  It did not take long to make enough meal for bread for all the lodge.

The officer called my attention to girls dressed in silks and satins, their ears loaded with jewelry, their hair done up.  I said "Surely these are not Indians; these are white ladies."

"These are Indians," said the officer.  "Those negroes doing the cooking are their slaves."

The Cherokee girls were just as handsome as any girls and had fine forms, straight as an arrow.

As we walked on, we saw hunters coming from every direction, loaded down with game; some used guns but the most that I saw had bows and arrows.  We met one Indian with a string of fox squirrels, every one of them with a hole through its neck made by an arrow.   Some hunters had deer, some turkeys or small game.  The officer asked an Indian to let me see his bow and arrows.  I would have liked to buy them of him, but I did not feel that I cared to talk to him much.

I saw groups of boys at play, but do not know what some of their games were.  Some were pitching arrows, while some of the larger were shooting at a target on a tree with their bows; it was surprising how close they shot.  I was shown how they make their bows, how they fashioned arrows to the shafts, and how the points were fastened on.

I saw a group of girls playing at a sort of battledore.  When I heard the laughter of the boys and girls, I could hardly realize I was in an Indian camp, among people who had been called savages.  But I also noticed that many of the old men and women did wear a savage look and seemed as though their hearts were full of hate toward the white race, and they would be glad to take your scalp if it were in their power to do so.

After strolling the length of the camp, with all the lodges up and it being after dark, we loitered back on a return trip.  It was the duty of the officer to see to all the camp affairs just like a policeman in the city; for the Cherokee were under regulation as strict as if they were white.  Some of the families were at super, and their tables were set with just as nice dishes; the food looked as good and smelt as good as any white folks.  I felt I would like to sit down to one of their tables and be an Indian.

Back at our starting point the officer took my hand and said, "Now you have seen the Indians in camp, if you would like to be one, or join them, we will take you along and you can marry one of these girls; they will make a chief of you for Indian girls think it an honor to have a white husband.  What do you say?  Will you go?"

I finally told him I would go home and ask my ma, and see what she said.   And it was against the rules for anyone who did not belong to the company to be found inside the camp after 9 o'clock, I bade my conductor goodby and started for home through the mud and darkness, tired, hungry and sleepy. "

Article by Elizabeth Holloman from writings by Theodore Pease Russell